Aruna & Her Palate

Aruna & Her Palate (2018)

Aruna & Lidahnya

A food-loving epidemiologist Aruna has to go to the countryside to investigate the avian flu outbreak. A chef and a food critic also accompany her—this could turn out to be a food trip!

Date of release
2018-09-27
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (24)
Runtime
1h 46m
Genres
Drama, Romance
Director
Edwin

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Filmed in: Indonesia

Aruna & Her Palate is an Indonesian drama film based on the novel The Birdwoman's Palate by Laksmi Pamuntjak. It stars Dian Sastrowardoyo, Nicholas Saputra, Hannah Al Rashid, Oka Antara, and Ayu Azhari. Directed by Edwin, it is the second film produced by Palari Films, this time in collaborations with CJ Entertainment, Phoenix Films, and GoStudio. The story focuses on the friendships and romantic entanglement involving two men and two women all in their 30s with thematic references to local culinary wealth. Dian Sastrowardoyo stars as an epidemiologist tasked to investigate a suspected bird flu outbreak.

Production

Palari Films intended to produce a film adaptation of the 2014 novel Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas by Eka Kurniawan. They picked up the film rights in 2016 but the adaptation process took longer than expected, prompting Edwin to pursue Laksmi Pamuntjak's The Birdwoman's Palate first instead. Producer Meiske Taurisia describes it as a loose adaptation as it does not follow the novel strictly.

The film reunites Dian Sastrowardoyo and Nicholas Saputra who rose to popularity in the 2002 high school romantic drama hit Ada Apa dengan Cinta?. Aside from its sequel Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? 2, this is the only other film that the two have appeared on screen together.

The production process involved local filmmakers in West Kalimantan. Food stylist Puji Purnama was taken on for the shooting process. The film cost more to produce than Posesif despite cutting the number of locations in half due to high costs of equipment and transportation. The five locations are Jakarta, Surabaya, Pamekasan, Pontianak, and Singkawang.

For the Lantern Festival scene, the crew needed a lot of local extras and bit parts in Singkawang with the ability to speak in Javanese with a Surabayan dialect. Real lanterns were installed in street corners with an actual dragon dance performance taking place to make the scene look more vibrant.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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